Whirling Blades

My experiences are based on useing whirling blades relatively recently. I have to echo the issues people are having with desyncing and this skill. Many times I've used it to disengage with a pack of mobs then retreat round a corner to let my es regen only to find that was just a mirage and my shadow was getting worked over by a horde three rooms away. Combine it with liberal amounts of flicky strike action and the game turns to custard more often than not. Playing in NZ at around 190ms for what it's worth.

Fun skill otherwise, haven't found the damage to be too mediocre, useful for mopping up monkey swarms. Hitting things on the other hand is very spotty, tieing into the desync plagueing the game right now.

A means to lengthen the distance or perhaps give it a bit more slop when it comes to calculating hit ranges might make it a bit more user friendly.

After using this skill Ive found many of the same issues others have reported.

Desync being the worse, and not hitting even with max acc on many targets. Also the AOE ranges seems to be limited.

Mana cost is sorta high for this skill (as it should be due to AOE) but because you dont hit all of them every time you end up burning to much mana.

Damage is lackluster, but if it hit more often it wouldnt be bad. With a shield I think this skill shines however, I believe it was meant to work with dual wield better, but right now its not effective to use as an AOE with DW builds. I think something like extra damage or something should work from DW builds or double hits with DW (2x hitting might make it OP if they fix the not hitting issues, so might cut it down to 1.5x if they fix that).

Skill is fun to use, just doesnt work. Its great for moving around or getting away, but not good enough to really use for that type of effect, major issue with that is also desync again.

Other than its applicable mobility uses, I like using this skill to whittle down the enemies' health a bit (in a decently sized group) and then go in and tank with Cleave to mop them up.

This skill needs a complete rework. I dont think that the Devs will manage to decrease the desync in such an amount, so that this skill becomes usefull. Cause eleminating the desync would be one option.

The other option is, to rework this skill. Cause like it is now, I am jumping around like crazy and actually it is huge fun. But with that comes the desync. A solution would be for example: The player uses this skill on an enemie in range. He will rush towards the target and hit him. If there is another enemie the player will automatically rush through this one again, hit him and if there is anohter enemie etc. By lvl up this amount of enemies being chained-attacked increases. After skill ends the player stops at the position he started.

By this one would decrease the many position deysncing and would obtain a melee AoE skill. Just a suggestion. But like how it is now, this skill is totally broken and useless. And I am not talking about a litte desync now and then. With a constantly ping under 45ms, as soon as I use WB 3 times in a row I get a desync.

I (too) have a problem with this skill.

For the note I'm using a dualwield evasion claw shadow and I often use this skill to quickly regain my health (since the claws' passive hp gain and +lifesteal works on these hits too) and in a bigger crowd it's from 20% to 80% in one or two dashes.

Problem is, sometimes the life steal doesn't apply (and trust me, I've looked, I DO hit the mobs) and sometimes I only get the drained hp a few seconds after I'm done with the dash. This is a VERY mig problem since this ends up killing me a bit too often, especially on higher difficulties.

I'm sure this build isn't at the peak of survivability but it's really paaaainful to die over and over again because of this.

The delay at the end is rather annoying but that has been adressed before me.

Anone having the same problem? Will there be a possible solution?

Edit: I'm using clarity (lol) so mana cost doesn't bother me.

Like many others I too have had some issues with this skill. I love this skill and have made a build around it, but there are some issues that need worked out.

First let me tell you some of the issues I noticed, then I will let you know of some crude testing I did.

1. I've noticed that often I seem to miss mobs much more than my 90% accuracy would suggest. Often times I go flying through a mass of mobs and although I hear the skill hitting, the mobs take little or no damage. I have actually used this skill on a mob 12 times before it died.

I have found that the more that I spam the skill the more the skill misses mobs. (I have a faster attack support gem linked to whrling blades so the cast speed is .41)

Interestingly enough I have found the very first attack does not suffer from this accuracy issue.

2. Some times mobs take damage that were obviously not hit. Most of the time they are mobs that would have been hit if I had traveled further.

3. Some times mobs become desynced from their bodies.
Their bodies will stop moving, but they are invisiblely moving around and hitting. The only way to kill them is to run over and attack the immobile mob's body.

Now for the Tests and their Results and a possible cause...

Character used in test:
Shadow lvl 49
Accuacy 90%
Crit chance:21%
Crit damage mod: 310%
Area: lvl 45 mobs

Single pass tests

1. I would run up to a mass of mobs then use whirling blades through them. The skill works as I would expect.

Most mobs are hit,
a few are instantly killed,
some are shocked,
some are burned,
one or two are burned and shocked,
some just take damage,
and one or two are completlely missed

2. I turn my back on a mass of mobs and let them run up to me, then I use whirling blaes through them.

I can get two different result here.
A.) results similar to test one, only with a slight delay (desync) visual.

B.) I hear sudio of my character hitting with WB but only a couple of the mobs are hit, often times taking very little damage.

Multiple pass tests (no turning to face mobs)

1. Run up to a mass of mobs and use WB through them, then spam the skill back and forth until all mobs are dead.

Results similiar to test 1 on first pass, then suddenly I start missing mobs and ones I do hit often seem to be suffering from lag. Mass of 10 mobs, 4 die first pass then it takes 4 to 8 more passes to kill the last 6.

2. Let the mass of mobs run up to me then us WB through them, then spam the skill back and forth until all mobs are dead.

results are similar to test two, where I might hit or I might miss, with it requiring 4 to 8 passes to kill the last couple of mobs.

Multiple pass ( turn and face mobs before each pass)
Obviously this test is only possible in large open areas, and the delay between passes is over a second while I reposition for the next pass.

Results: Skills works as expected, requiring only 2 or 3 passes to kill a mass of 10+ mobs.

For a long time I thought it was lag or desync causing this, but then I read a post in another thread that caught my attention.

"

Jonathan wrote:

In Path of Exile, we really want to try and mitigate the effects of lag so that you get the correct feeling of impact at the right moment when doing an attack. Because of this, for Melee attacks we predict what the damage will be at the point you start taking a swing and that information is sent to the client in advance. The client then predicts if it should display the damage or not at the contact point of the attack.

The obvious important part of this is that you need to know in advance who the target of the attack is going to be. For a melee attack, the target is obvious. The guy standing right in front of you. For a projectile, we can't really predict who it will hit easily, and so because of this, we don't do damage prediction for projectiles. The visible damage for projectiles is delayed while you wait for the information to arrive from the server.
.

So I wonder if because my characters "back" is to the mobs if the server/client are having a hard time predicting who is going to get hit, especially if I spam the skill.

This would seem to explain a lot of the results people are having with this skill. Ofcouse my tests were very crude, so it might not be this at all.

"

Ambrose151 wrote:

...

Experienced all of this, its all about desync. This skill was not made to kill enemies, but to confuse the server I guess.
Using WB like 3 times in a row always messses something up. Using it even 5 times: Just expect something random to happen.

"

WUlf1337 wrote:

Using WB like 3 times in a row always messses something up. Using it even 5 times: Just expect something random to happen.

So WB stands for Wabbajack, right? :P

Hey guys. Don't know if you noticed but... there's a desync issue with this skill.

desync desync desync.

.....


desync.

"

Scruff260 wrote:

Hey guys. Don't know if you noticed but... there's a desync issue with this skill.

desync desync desync.

.....


desync.

Hey mate, dont know if you noticed but...look many posts before you ^^